Psychology

Good Places to Begin Your Research

At the College of Alameda Library

Check for books in PEARL, the library catalog, using keywords from your thesis statement or research question. (Please see the library handout on developing a thesis statement.)  PEARL, the Peralta District’s library catalog, allows you to search for books at all four of the Peralta colleges, or you can limit your search to just the College of Alameda.

Encyclopedias and other reference books about psychology can be found on the reference shelves with call numbers beginning with BF. For example, the four volume set, The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology and behavioral science, is a good place to begin your research. The set is located in the reference area under call number BF 31 .E52 2001. Books about psychiatry are on the shelves under the call number RC 321-576. (Books beginning with the call number R are about medicine.) Books about social psychology are on the shelves with sociology books, which begin with the call number HM. Ask for help at the Library Reference Desk for finding the right books for your research.

To find periodical articles about psychology a good place to start is with the following library magazine and newspaper article databases: Academic Search Premier (Ebsco), Expanded Academic ASAP (Infotrac) and Ethnic NewsWatch (Proquest). Ask for help at the Library Reference Desk on using these online library resources.

A good Internet resource is the Librarians’ Internet Index: lii.org.  Try using the same subject terms that you used when searching the library catalog for books. Also try the Library’s guide to websites available at alameda.peralta.edu/library.

SMG May 2006